Gait may be associated with orgasmic ability

Sep 04, 2008

A new study found that trained sexologists could infer a woman's history of vaginal orgasm by observing the way she walks. The study is published in the September 2008 issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the official journal of the International Society for Sexual Medicine and the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health.

Led by Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland in collaboration with colleagues in Belgium, the study involved 16 female Belgian university students. Subjects completed a questionnaire on their sexual behavior and were then videotaped from a distance while walking in a public place. The videotapes were rated by two professors of sexology and two research assistants trained in the functional-sexological approach to sexology, who were not aware of the women's orgasmic history.

The results showed that the appropriately trained sexologists were able to correctly infer vaginal orgasm through watching the way the women walked over 80 percent of the time. Further analysis revealed that the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation was greater for the vaginally orgasmic women. "This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine," the authors note.

There are several plausible explanations for the results shown by this study. One possibility is that a woman's anatomical features may predispose her to greater or lesser tendency to experience vaginal orgasm. According to Brody, "Blocked pelvic muscles, which might be associated with psychosexual impairments, could both impair vaginal orgasmic response and gait." In addition, vaginally orgasmic women may feel more confident about their sexuality, which might be reflected in their gait. "Such confidence might also be related to the relationship(s) that a woman has had, given the finding that specifically penile-vaginal orgasm is associated with indices of better relationship quality," the authors state. Research has linked vaginal orgasm to better mental health.

The study provides some support for assumptions of a link between muscle blocks and sexual function, according to the authors. They conclude that it may lend credibility to the idea of incorporating training in movement, breathing and muscle patterns into the treatment of sexual dysfunction.

"Women with orgasmic dysfunction should be treated in a multi-disciplinary manner" says Irwin Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine."Although small, this study highlights the potential for multiple therapies such as expressive arts therapy incorporating movement and physical therapy focusing on the pelvic floor."

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Self-fulfilling prophecy: the strut advertises sexiness, which increases the odds of satisfaction, which makes a gal strut more. Hey, it works the other way, too: going without for long enough pretty much guarantees one will go without, and now we know how to turn that around. Cool!

BTW, I'm female and I've known this all along; it's no secret. Except to academics, and we all know how most of them walk. ;o)

This is such a lame study, it only involved 16 women? And the meaning of "infer historical ability of orgasm" is never specified - you mean they can tell if you orgasmed last week/last year/your whole life? I'm female and it's obvious to me too - you get laid->you feel confident-you stride longer. didn't need a study to tell us that lol.

Bernium - I'm so glad someone mentioned it first! I nearly closed the story after reading the sample size. With a sample size of 16 and error occurring 20% of the time, I wouldn't let my undergrad present that conclusion in a classroom seminar, nevermind publish those results.

It might be an interesting study, but they need to work on their controls and sample size.

Never mind a woman having any kind of disability or limitation of movement. I am sure that according to this study that would mean they don't orgasm at all. A study group of 16?!? Bernium and impulse882 are right. This is embarrassing...

Although this study may draw conclusions working with a very small sample, in my point of view it talks about a degree of energy level that everyone has the potential to develop, having or not physical and/or mental disabilities. The body-mind is a complex system, which is all connected, and when one works fluency between all its parts, the potential for enjoying life and sex is naturally expanded.

actually there's no such thing as a vaginal orgasm, all orgasms originate from clitoral stimulation and most women aren't even aware that what they perceive to be a "vaginal orgasm" is still heavily dependent on their clitoral stimulation during sexual activity. So perhaps its actually a woman's proximity of her clitoris to her vagina that aids in her "vaginal orgasm" and is relavent to the way she walks. It's interesting to see that most people know the importance of clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm but doctor's as still trying to discover the secret to the nonexistent "vaginal orgasm". Personally i think it simply has to do with the fact that men orgasm through friction with the vagina and for a woman to need more than that is unsettling for men.

"actually there's no such thing as a vaginal orgasm, all orgasms originate from clitoral stimulation and most women aren't even aware that what they perceive to be a "vaginal orgasm" is still heavily dependent on their clitoral stimulation during sexual activity."

LOL - really? Vaginal orgasms aka g-spot orgasms rock .... and have nothing to do with the clitoris.

Can you believe this researcher received funds to spend time ogling 16 college girls to see which ones had the sexiest walks, then interviewed them about their orgasms? The study probably involved some long, highly objective, late-night experimental sessions at the author's apartment. I would conclude that he is probably a pedophile, except that the sample size (n = 1 stupid paper) is not large enough to reach statistical significance.

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